The op-ed that the Herald published by the executive director of NetChoice, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association, is misleading (“Mass. driving to extremes,” June 7). NetChoice lobbies on behalf of one of the largest players in the $500 million license-plate tracking industry, Vigilant Solutions. Put simply, Vigilant stands to lose money if the Massachusetts Legislature passes a common sense law to deal with the threat of warrantless location tracking.

Like the National Security Agency, anti-privacy warriors like NetChoice argue that the government should be able to collect as much information as it wants about the private lives of innocent people, and then hold onto it for years. That’s wrong. If you aren’t suspected of wrongdoing, the government shouldn’t be tracking where and when you drive. The License Plate Privacy Act would both protect public safety and the freedoms that make our commonwealth great. The Legislature should pass it immediately.

— Kade Crockford, program director, ACLU of Massachusetts, Boston

In praise of pot

Cannabis has been used as a medicine since ancient times — long before the Herald began publishing. And exciting research continues apace, including possible treatments for those suffering from certain cancers. Yet a Herald editorial can only speak of “medical” marijuana, instead of simply leaving out the quote marks (“Congress goes to pot,” June 9). And the Herald sarcastically calls the patients seeking marijuana “poor souls whose extreme medical conditions can only be treated with a toke or two.” Why not just say that there are patients for whom cannabis in some form is the best treatment?

No one is “pushing the notion that marijuana is a cure-all for every ailment,” as the Herald claims. Some of us are asking the paper to stop sneering at those patients — many dealing with severe chronic pain — who find that marijuana is a valuable medicine that gives them very real relief from very real medical problems.

— Andy Gaus, Boston

Useless feel-good ideas

The people of Massachusetts should be insulted by Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to limit the purchase of firearms to one per month (“House speaker to introduce gun control bill,” May 23). It is more wasted time and money for our “progressive” legislators to feel good about, while doing absolutely nothing.

Has anyone come up with a case where this might have affected a negative outcome? Anywhere? Nope! It will just be something for the garden-variety liberal pols to point to and say “look what we did.” But it will be essentially nothing but more feel-good legislation designed to aggravate Second Amendment backers — as if that’s a legislator’s job.

— Al DePaoli, Woburn

Prez at fault

Adriana Cohen has it right, sort of (“Prez trades one mess for another,” June 3). President Obama is using his one scandal after another to get the last scandal off the front page (if it ever gets there with his adoring mainstream media). Cohen said he “trades one mess for another.” He doesn’t trade (re: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl), he just adds to them.